


You'll Find Love

by AndallitsGlory



Series: Breaking Up Is Hard to Do [5]
Category: Midnighter (Comics)
Genre: Angie is getting a real hang of this superhero thing, Apollo and Midnighter back together again aw, M/M, my only heterosexual OTP meet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-29
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-07-10 20:47:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7005814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndallitsGlory/pseuds/AndallitsGlory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midnighter has found his way home and Angie meets a really aggravating person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You'll Find Love

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to all who read and supported these little stories, they were so much fun to write! I love connecting with Authority/Midnighter fans and I hope you enjoyed :)

It had been a long time since Angie had to make amends with a friend and she hadn’t missed the defeated feeling that came with it. When Andrew opened the door to his apartment, the gulf between them felt like it went as far as miles and as deep as an ocean trench. Angie fingered the plastic bag of wine she carried with her as she cracked out a hello, not sure what else to say.

But then Andrew smiled. Not as broad as usual, but sincere enough to warm her heart like the proximity to him warmed her skin. She threw herself into him to wrap her arms around him as tight as she could manage and his arms enveloped her in return.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just—“

“You had right to worry,” she said, as he let go of her and took the bag. “But hey! It’s okay, chico. I beat my first monster with barely a scratch.”

He laughed as she entered his place. He led her into the kitchen, which had three pots simmering on the stove. The sharp smell of paprika and chili peppers crackled the open air, little dispelled by the sliding glass door propped open to welcome in the evening. “Congrats. Shen told me all about it.”

Angie hesitated, taking time to shuck off her denim jacket at the table and let the chrome seep out of her pores. The silver had retaken nearly all of her body when she asked, trying to sound as casual as possible, “Did she tell you about the fuck dust?”

Andrew turned to face her abruptly, eyebrows shot up toward his hairline in a definitive ‘no.’

“What about fuck dust?” a deep voice resonated from the direction of the bedroom. Midnighter emerged, dressed in a plain white t-shirt and loose-fitting cargo pants. Angie stared, realizing that in the few times she had met him, she had never seen him out of that intimidating black uniform. She was a stranger to the relaxed state of his shoulders and the quirks at the corners of his mouth. His eyebrows raised in a surprised mirror to his boyfriend’s. “Angie.”

“Hi L-Midnighter,” she said, shooting a nervous glance at Andrew and clenching her silver fists. He shrugged and went off to tend to his stainless steel children. 

“That’s new,” Midnighter said, jutting his chin out toward her. 

“Made it all by myself,” she said, putting out an underlining of pride that wasn’t quite a facade. She had survived the test. Now she got to wear her prize for all time.

“Cool. Looks good on you,” he said and went to pick a piece of bread out of a basket hanging out by the counter. Andrew reached over and smacked his hand, but instead of dropping it, Midnighter laughed and dunked out of reach. He stuffed the white fluff into his mouth and asked around it, “What are you calling yourself these days?”

It took her a moment to realize his sincerity. Angie’s hands unclenched and the tingling sense of gratitude spread throughout her liberated fingers. “The Engineer.”

Andrew’s blue eyes met her green. They held the connection for a second, him looking thoughtful before he turned away with what looked like a small grin. “Dinner’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

Midnighter took this as cue to snap up the rest of the bread basket before Andrew could catch him and bring it over to the table. Angie followed, grabbing the wine off the table and reveling in her abilities as she stretched an arm out to pull open the drawer where she knew Andrew kept the bottle opener. The cork popped out like the high note to a long solo, over Midnighter’s instrumental laughter. 

“One thing’s for sure,” he said as Andrew brought out the platters of spicy chicken chorizo paella, “I definitely missed your cooking.”

“Where have you been all this time?” Angie asked, leaning over to serve herself.

“Ha!” Midnighter said as Andrew pulled away from the brief kiss he had rested on his forehead. Midnighter looked perfectly at home. They both did. “Where do I begin?”

***

The weight of Angie’s messenger bag hung from her like a weight tied to her hand. She let out a long exhale, cigarette smoke lazily wafting out of her lungs and up toward the the tops of the Manhattan buildings. Her first day back to work after taking a month off—begging medical and family reasons—and in five minutes she was due to meet her supervisor. If she didn’t tell her employers that she now had meta-human abilities, they would end up finding out on their own. She expected a lot of tough questions as she didn’t want to reveal that the source of The Engineer came from The Carrier, but she didn’t want the alternative of wearing a mask. She did not want to hide herself from the world.

And so this difficult conversation, complete with the pound’s worth of research that cramped her elbow, had to happen. 

She crushed the cigarette underneath the heel of her boot, adjusted the bag’s strap, and breached the sliding glass doors. At the elevators waited a black-haired man, who wore sunglasses but gave her a sidelong smile. She returned one out of politeness as the elevator announced its presence.

“Just in time,” the man said.

“Hate that wait,” she agreed and stretched out her hand toward the buttons. “What floor?”

“70.” The top floor, reserved for her employer’s office. “Oh, you too. Do you work here?”

“I’m usually off-site,” she said. The man’s cheekbones had a precise cut to them that kept him on a rickety balance between striking and strange-looking. She tried not to stare, but the nanites in her blood had started rushing a little faster. 

“Ah, so you’re a researcher,” he said.

“I am,” she said and held out her hand to shake. His hand came gloved in a soft leather, too old and worn to be stylish, and his grip came hard, almost crushing. “Dr. Angela Spica.”

“I’m Jack. New to the building, old to New York. As you are…” 

“How could you tell?” she asked as they reached 70. One look at the dingy, low-lit offices and she realized that Jack had distracted her from her nerves. Now they came crawling back, stirring up the thickness deep in her gut. 

He didn’t answer her question.

She turned to look for him and startled at the discovery that he was nowhere within the narrow entranceway of the office. Forgetting herself, she searched wildly about the room. Her blood rushed up to her epidermis, threatening to break the surface of her skin, and she fought to keep it back. 

The woman sitting behind the nearest desk stared at her with the bitter, distant sight of someone who loathed interruptions. Catching this, Angie sighed and blinked hard and slow a few times to compose herself. This was not the day for this. She had to keep up her most professional demeanor—

The weight dropped out of her messenger bag.

“Fuck,” she said, grabbing for it like she could make the package reappear by pure will. The fabric made a pathetic flapping noise as she shook it with anger.

“Who are you?” a very familiar, shrill voice screeched out from the office all the way in the back of the floor. “What the hell—“

Angie’s mood rippled and steamed; she let the chrome have its way. Along with it, her fury released into the open air and she stormed toward the yelling, which had now rose to a ruckus.

“Hey, estúpido!” she said. The door to her supervisor’s office was still closed, so Angie kicked it open with her foot. Inside, her supervisor—clothes and glasses askew, face flushed a bright red—clutched the row paddle she kept on her wall, clearly about to swing. Jack smirked at Angie from the top of the wall, attached by his hands and feet except for the one that held her paperwork in his hand. His abandoned sunglasses, gloves, and shoes lay like baby toes in an aged household. Angie put on the most commanding tone of voice she could muster. Her Shen voice. “Give me back my notes.”

“Sorry, but I have to give these a read. Important superhero business,” Jack said, smirking. If Angie’s silver surprised him, he didn’t show it.

“It took us five years to come up with that packet, you’re real cute if you think you’re walking out of this place alive with it.”

“Aw, you really think I’m cute?” 

Whatever he expected, it wasn’t Angie shaping her left arm into a machine gun and firing at him. She didn’t quite expect it herself—it having only happened once while fighting alongside Shen—and she and Jack blinked at each other with shared panic. Acrid smoke poured out of the hole in the wall beside him.

Snapping herself back into action, Angie rushed at him headfirst. His red eyes wide, he dodged her helmed skull in the nick of time and the plaster made a crunching sound as she collided with it. Not to be deterred, however, she twisted herself around and tried to grab at him again. This time, he deflected her arms with ease before sinking into the floor.

She landed in the same spot he vanished and stood there for a second, stumped. 

Wait. Would it be possible for her to…?

She distanced the atoms in her feet, letting them dissolve into the rundown carpet. Her supervisor screamed behind her as Angie descended out of sight, pulling herself apart.

Upon putting herself back together again, she found herself in the 69th floor’s office, its sole occupant snoring in his desk chair. Jack was nowhere to be seen. She frowned, considering further. Her temperature had increased when the two of them were in close proximity, a natural reaction to hormones and other chemicals they exuded. If she could use that as some sort of tracking device—

“Hi Dr. Spica,” Jack said, sticking his head in from the window. He grinned up at her as she hissed at him, her hair raising like the Medusa’s snakes. “Good show. No hard feelings!”

She was burning hot now. She launched herself out the window, missing him this time by a fraction of a hair—a fact only made more annoying that he obviously allowed it. Of course, by the time she had balanced herself up in the air and turned around to face him, he had gone away yet again.

“Seriously, I mean it. Not bad for a newbie,” he called from the roof. 

Angie hollered with frustration. “Just give me my work back, you prick!”

“Okay, I’ll be sure to return it once I’m done with it.”

“That is classified property of the United States government. Unauthorized persons are subject to—“

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I’d like to see them try.” He laughed. “Thanks for the exercise. See you around, Dr. Spica!”

It took her a few minutes of her hanging limply in the air, recovering her wits. Finally, she steered herself off the edge of devastation and caught the crowds of people staring at her from the windows of all the visible buildings. They pointed, mouths gaping, whispering amongst themselves. She recognized the awe in their eyes. She had once felt it too. She had once stood among them, amazed at the ways of Gods.

This was glory.


End file.
